


Keep From Cold

by sister_dear



Series: Built on Trust [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blue feels bad and his family helps make it better, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Four (Linked Universe)-centric, Gen, He had a rough day in the last installment ok he needs a break, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Sky is here but he's asleep the whole time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29157819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_dear/pseuds/sister_dear
Summary: Blue's protective instincts won't leave him alone after an incident on the road.
Relationships: Blue Link & Grandpa Smith, Blue Link & Red Link & Vio Link, Four & Sky (Linked Universe)
Series: Built on Trust [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091690
Comments: 10
Kudos: 144





	Keep From Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This one will be missing context if you haven’t read Handle With Care but it shouldn’t be strictly necessary to read them both.
> 
> What happened while Sky was asleep.

“...And they have fascinating techniques for differential hardening. They've truly turned it into an art form.”

Blue sits with his family in their snug little house, crowded with his brothers onto their worn old couch. Across from them, Grandpa leans forward in his big cushioned chair, elbows braced on the arms and fingers interwoven, perfectly attentive. 

When it comes to new smithing techniques, Vio is nearly as enthusiastic as Red. It’s easy to let them take over the conversation. Not that Blue doesn’t appreciate the chance to talk to Grandpa as himself rather than as part of the whole that makes up Four. He’s just… distracted.

For once, the worry isn’t over his brothers. Vio and Red are right next to him. Green isn’t, heading back into town to warn the rest of the group about the monsters they encountered on the road, but he can out-fight or outrun anything they might have missed on their way here. 

The weight of Sky’s head and shoulders press down on Blue’s legs, heavy even through the decorative pillow thrown over his lap. 

He’s so still. Is he asleep yet? Will he notice if Blue moves?

...Is he breathing?

Blue wants to lean forward to check, but if Sky isn’t completely asleep that will wake him for sure. Grandpa is facing them. The room is well lit by the fire and the afternoon sun. Grandpa will notice if Sky’s lips start going purple or something. 

Sky hasn’t moved even once since Blue pressed a hand down onto his shoulder to keep the idiot from trying to sit up after they finally got him laying down. Sky needed the rest. He admitted so himself, and that was _before_ monsters ambushed them on the road and sent Sky into a full blown breathing fit. 

Blue’s hands and feet are still tingling with lingering adrenaline. He stomps ruthlessly on the need to move. Controlled breaths regulate his heart rate. An iron will holds his limbs utterly still.

“They make whole _landscapes_ on the blades. With animals and trees and everything! Just by how they lay on the clay!”

“And these are their everyday weapons? They fight with those swords?”

“Well, no. The really fancy ones are more decorative. There were a bunch on the walls of the throne room.”

Blue’s hand slips, as if with a mind of its own, from Sky’s shoulder. As carefully as if he was inlaying a hilt with precious gems, Blue’s fingers settle themselves on Sky’s ribs instead. They rise and fall, smooth and even. There’s not even a trace of that awful whistling sound. Just the crackle of the fire and the voices of his family, like a hundred other easy afternoons at home. 

Blue can’t shake the need to get up and fight, but there’s nothing _to_ fight. Not any more.

Blue isn’t the only one fretting. Down at the other end of the couch, Vio has an arm around Red and a hand on Sky’s ankle, his foot poking out from the end of the blanket. Red is half on Vio’s lap, half snugged into the space between Vio and the back cushions, both their legs tossed over Sky’s. Red talks with his hands as much as his spoken words, but whenever his mouth isn’t moving his fingers find their way to Vio and Sky in turn. 

Midway through their excited explanation of some of the more extravagant blades from Warriors’ era, Grandpa glances down and something in his face relaxes. He meets Blue’s eyes and nods at Sky. Taking great care with his movements, Blue leans forward, peering down at Sky’s face. He can’t see much past Sky’s bangs, especially when he’s trying not to lean over so far that he risks pinching Sky’s ears. Red folds himself over Vio’s lap to do the same. Vio grunts, moving the hand that Red plants on his leg with a pained grimace. 

“He’s asleep.” Red’s hushed whisper is not necessary if Sky is truly out, but Blue understands the impulse. 

“Finally.” Blue tips his head back towards the ceiling, an uncomfortable mix of exasperation and relief tangling in his chest. 

“What happened?” Grandpa’s question really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Blue frowns, exchanging a look with Vio. He’s not sure how much Sky would want Grandpa to know. 

“His health isn’t so good,” Red blurts out, making the decision for them.

Vio sighs, tucking Red back into his arms. “He does have problems sometimes, especially with his lungs. We were heading back early because he was having a bad day. He had a fit when we were attacked.”

“A bad one,” Red emphasis. “It was scary. He wasn’t breathing right, making this _noise._ ” Despite the almost uncomfortable warmth of the shared couch, Red shivers, huddling further into Vio. 

“And to think he wanted to try coming back here alone!” Vio’s voice raises on the last word, becoming strident.

“Keep your voice down,” Blue hisses. They all pause, but in true Sky fashion, once he’s out, he’s out. Blue curls over him again to be sure, lifting his bangs carefully out of the way. Sky sleeps on peacefully, expression relaxed. 

“Can you make cucco broth for dinner?” Red aims big, hopeful puppy eyes at Grandpa. “He was acting like his stomach was bothering him too.”

It will take more than broth to satisfy the appetites of nine hungry heroes, but Grandpa doesn’t say that. He only nods his agreement, running a thoughtful hand over his beard. “I’ll add it to the menu.”

Red huffs in satisfaction. Just as quickly as he’s resettled, he sighs and shifts, leaning forward again to look at Sky’s face. Vio hisses, this time taking an elbow to the ribs, pure exasperation flitting across his face. “Stop _doing that._ Ouch.” 

“Sorry!” 

Red rearranges his legs, trying to get his weight off Vio, and ends up pressing more of it on Sky instead. The bob and dip of all the squirming transmits up the couch cushions, jostling everyone. Sky’s breathing hitches, a little stutter-step felt more than heard under Blue’s hand on Sky’s ribs. Blue’s heart lurches up into his throat. “Knock it off, Red!” His hand tightens on Sky’s side before he catches himself. It takes conscious effort to relax again.

Grandpa, as ever, knows how to divert the growing irritation. He pats his hands on his knees, grabbing the attention of all three of them. “If we’re going to have dinner ready by the time your friends return, we’d best get started.” A push up off the arms of his chair has him upright, only a little stiff. “Red, go get some pillows from upstairs. Carefully, now,” he cautions as Red and Vio start to untangle. Red hops upright first. Vio follows with more care, leveraging the arm and back of the couch to lift his weight off the cushions with a minimum of jostling. Grandpa’s thoughtful frown turns from Sky to the hearth. “If the problem is his lungs, best not let the air get too dry.”

“I’ll get a bucket and some snow,” Vio offers. “We can let it melt by the fire.”

“Good lad.”

Both of Blue’s brothers leave, but despite the prolonged stillness causing a growing ache in his legs, Blue himself has no intention of moving. Blue stares down at Sky’s head, resting heavy on his lap. His ears are blunter and shorter than Blue’s own, their tips no longer burnt red with cold. His bangs have fallen over his face again, but his ribs still rise and fall. A log snaps in the fire. Red’s footsteps drum up the stairs, nearly loud enough to cover the thump of the door closing behind Vio.

Grandpa sighs. His hand comes down, a solid weight on Blue’s shoulder. He doesn’t speak. Only stays as a sturdy presence in Blue’s peripheral vision, ever grounding. Blue scowls to chase away the impulse to bite his lip, to lean into Grandpa’s side. 

Grandpa will let him get away with saying nothing. He’ll be disappointed, but he won’t push. Blue could keep quiet. In a few more moments Blue’s brothers will return, and the decision will be out of his hands. 

Silence is the cowards’ way out.

“We couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t help. He just collapsed in the middle of a battle, and all I could do was _watch.”_

Grandpa’s hands are scarred and calloused. Blue feels the press of every individual fingertip. 

“You got him back here safely, son. That’s not nothing.”

Blue’s scowl grows more fierce. Grandpa crouches, kneeling beside Blue with a grunt and a creaking of old joints. His hand drops from Blue’s shoulder as he goes, only to come to rest again on Blue’s knee. “Look at me, Blue.” His voice is quiet in deference to the soft hush that has fallen over the room, to sleeping ears so close, but there are rods of steel in his tone. Blue lifts his chin, glowering first at Grandpa’s beard and then finally meeting his eyes when Grandpa ducks down to catch him. “If there’s anything you four have taught me, it’s that sometimes the best you can do is to be there for someone after.” 

“That’s not good enough!” 

Grandpa nods, entirely unperturbed by being snapped at. “No, but sometimes that’s all there is.”

Denial rests on the tip of Blue’s tongue, but Red’s quick feet trotting down the stairs slam the door shut on anything he might have given voice.

Red’s arms are overflowing with what looks like every pillow from both their beds. One falls from the pile as he hits the last step. He kicks it ahead of him into the room. Vio returns with his full bucket just in time to see it hit the floor. 

“Honestly, Red.” Vio slips around Grandpa to set the bucket down between the couch and the fire, then picks up the dropped pillow with a put-upon sigh. 

Red just beams. 

Grandpa pats Blue’s knee. “Come on now, son. Up you get.”

Blue’s lips compress themselves into a thin line. He’s perfectly prepared to sit here and stew despite the restless twitchiness settling into his shoulders. Sky’s feet are still sticking out the end of the blanket. Surely they’re growing cold by now. 

“Where did you put his chainmail?” Blue looks up with narrowed eyes at the apparent non-sequitur of Vio's question to Grandpa. 

“It’s on the armor stand in the forge. He doesn’t do a bad job maintaining it, but it looks like it’s seen some hard use recently.”

Vio nods. Blue points an accusatory finger at his brother. “You’re manipulating me and it won’t work.”

“Won’t it? I’ll just do it myself then.” 

“No, I will! I want to!” Red dumps his armful of pillows on Grandpa’s chair. 

Red and Vio left alone in the forge with no one to temper them is a disaster waiting to happen. Vio is all extravagant ideas and Red gets excited about everything, encouraging Vio when he should be reigned in. They wind up distracting each other and not actually accomplishing anything. 

“Like hell you will.” Blue looks between Sky and the door to the forge, torn. 

Grandpa’s beard doesn’t quite cover his smile. “How about this. Vio and I will get started on dinner. We’ll keep an eye on your friend while you two go take a look at his equipment.”

It’s phrased as a suggestion, but the firm tone makes it clear that it isn’t. 

Blue could refuse anyway. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“...Fine.”

Red lights up, happy now that everyone is in agreement. He plucks a pillow off the top of the pile, aiming to hand it to Vio only to smile sheepishly once he realizes Vio is still holding the one he dropped earlier. They both turn to Sky with calculating looks on their faces. Blue cautiously works his hands under the pillow on his lap, lifting Sky’s head. Grandpa does the same to his shoulders. Red darts around, handing pillows to Vio and making numerous suggestions as Vio determines where best to place them in order to keep Sky’s upper half elevated. Eventually, Grandpa takes Sky’s head from Blue. “Come on out of there, now.” Blue slips sideways out from under Sky, going over the arm of the couch and moving slow, careful to avoid accidentally bumping his head with a knee. He almost plants his foot in the bucket of snow, remembering it’s there only when he bumps into and nearly upends it. Vio stuffs the last of the pillows into the space where Blue was sitting, and Grandpa eases Sky’s head back down. Blue tugs the blanket over Sky’s exposed feet, glaring at Red’s smile.

True to form, Sky sleeps on. Blue-as-Four has participated in some of the more outlandish pranks he and the others used to test how deeply Sky can sleep, but he can’t help but feel that it’s also a sign of just how much the breathing episode sapped Sky’s energy. 

Grandpa pats them all on their shoulders for a job well done. “Let’s start on dinner, Vio. I think bread bowls will be just the thing. Some vegetables from the cold storage. We’ll make a proper soup of it.” He catches Red and Blue in a hug before they can slink off to the forge. “Just in case I don’t get another opportunity before your friends come back.” Phrased like that, Blue can’t help but return it.

The Master Sword is hanging on one of the sword stands next to Sky’s other things. Red and Blue eye the lineup. Chainmail, sword, shield… 

“That chainmail is mine,” Blue declares. 

“Okay.” Red accepts that easily enough. He bites his lip, eyes darting between the other two items. “The baldric needs oiling.”

“...Maybe we can get it off without actually touching it.” It takes some careful maneuvering, but they manage to detach the baldric without bumping the sword or its scabbard. Fortunately, the Master Sword itself is in perfect condition. Sky cares for it meticulously, and the magical properties likely play a part as well. Red starts in on the baldric and shield, cleaning and checking fastenings. Blue turns to the chain. There are holes here and there that Sky has not had the opportunity to patch, places where the armor was pierced through or the rings simply loosened over time. Blue repairs those first, taking links from the last row on the underside of the arms, where the missing pieces won’t be noticed. The work is easy, the pattern a basic four in one. Once he’s done with the major repairs he starts going over it in detail, looking for loose rings and rust. 

He and Red fall into comfortable familiarity. They’ve always worked well together in the forge. Red likes to talk, but he doesn’t expect Blue to respond. He’ll get Blue’s attention if he actually wants input on something. The aimless chatter becomes background hum, the work productive and useful and good. Blue can’t protect Sky from his own body, but he can at least do this. The tight coil in his chest slowly loosens. The pent up twitchiness in his limbs transforms into the much more satisfying ache of bending over his work for too long. 

They are nearly done when Grandpa appears in the doorway. “Your boys are coming up the road. Vio said they shouldn’t see you. Best get upstairs quickly.”

Blue and Red exchange a look of shared panic. Vio is right; Sky might know about them as individuals now, but they haven’t made a group decision to come out to the rest of their companions. 

But none of them like leaving work undone, and while Blue has gotten about as far as is possible to get without giving the chain a very thorough and time-consuming deep clean, Red isn’t quite finished reassembling what he’d taken apart.

“We can’t stop now!”

“I’ll take over. Give it to me, you two go on. Do you really think these old hands don’t remember how to reattach a buckle? Off with you!”

Red and Blue leave their mess to Grandpa, Red latching onto Blue’s hand as they rush up the stairs. Vio is sitting on their shared twin bed to keep from giving himself away with the sound of footsteps pacing the floorboards. Blue and Red join him, Red bouncing once before Vio puts a hand on his knee to still him. A tense quiet falls over them as they hear the front door open downstairs, the muffled clamour of too many people trying to divest themselves of their gear in too small a space. 

All three of them tense when the door slips open a few minutes later, but it’s only Green.

“Any trouble?” Vio whispers the question, even though the likelihood of anyone downstairs hearing them over their own noise is slim. 

Green shakes his head. He strips off their old brown coat, hanging it in the wardrobe. The pegasus boots follow. “No more monsters, there or back. Zelda and I spoke to the king. There will be extra guards on the gates and double patrols.” He comes up to the side of the bed, accepting Red’s quick hug. “Warriors and Hyrule wanted to come back straight away once they heard what happened, I had to convince them that Grandpa could take care of anything that might come up with Sky. I think Time still cut the trip shorter than he would have otherwise. Did you have any trouble here?”

Vio shakes his head. “None, he went right to sleep.”

“We’ve been patching up his armor!”

Green nods, exhales, sharp and relieved. “Good.” 

“And no one insinuated you were acting differently than Four.” Green would have brought it up if they had, but Vio likes to be sure of these things. 

“No. Well. Twilight looked at me funny the once, but everyone was distracted with finding new gear. I think we’re clear.” 

In that case, Blue has had enough of the small talk. “Let’s get this over with. I want to go back downstairs.”

“You make it sound like such a chore,” Green teases. But his brothers all shuffle around, stepping lightly as they space themselves in a formation that by now is as familiar as a forge hammer in hand. 

Blue closes his eyes against the blinding flash of light. Four opens them. He flexes his fingers, mouth curled in a private smile as he settles. Then he bounds back down the stairs to where his family, both the old and the new members, are waiting. 


End file.
